Roasted Lamb Chops with Blackberry Sauce for #OTBN #winePW

Roasted Lamb Chops with Blackberry Sauce recipe features succulent meat and touch of sweetness from the sauce. An easy yet elegant gourmet meal! We served the lamb with a special bottle of Merlot. Disclosure: the wine was provided as a complimentary media sample by the winery.

We received two bottles of 2014 Duckhorn Three Palms Vineyard Napa Valley Merlot ($98, 14.5% ABV) for our #MerlotMe month observances. After enjoying the first bottle paired with Ribeye with Mushrooms, my first instinct was to let the second special bottle of Duckhorn Merlot age for a year or two and see how it evolves.

Then I heard the news that Wine Spectator had given the Three Palms Vineyard Merlot its top 2017 Wine of the Year honors. Hmm, I thought this could have Open That Bottle Night (OTBN) potential.

OTBN, held the fourth Saturday of February each year, was established by Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher, to give us a reason to open a special bottle of wine that has been waiting too long to open. Visit this post for more background on Open That Bottle Night.

OK, our second bottle of Duckhorn Three Palms Vineyard Merlot had only been in our cellar for a few months rather than years. But opening the 2017 Wine of the Year rather than saving it seemed to be in the spirit of OTBN. So we had our wine picked out for OTBN 2018. Now, what to pair with this special bottle of Duckhorn Merlot?

Roasted Lamb Chops with Blackberry Sauce

Though I very much enjoyed the Three Palms Vineyard Merlot with our ribeye recipe, I thought I’d like to make something with more complexity to serve as an even better match for the special Merlot.

I hadn’t made lamb in awhile, and the Three Palms Merlot certainly seemed to call for a meaty main dish. Lamb seemed to be a good starting point. A low roasted leg of lamb, or perhaps a lamb stew, could be a good pairing for this Merlot. But I didn’t have a lot of cooking time on the OTBN evening, so headed in the direction of quick cooking roasted lamb chops. These lamb chops take just seven minutes or so to roast in the oven after a quick pan sear on the stovetop.

I perused the Merlot section of The Wine Lover’s Cookbook for ideas about ingredients to use with the roasted lamb for a good pairing (Amazon affiliate link provided for the cookbook, a great resource!). Blackberry caught my eye, and I thought of a blackberry sauce for the roasted lamb chops.

For more pairing ideas, visit our Merlot Food Pairing: Tips and Tricks.

Pairings for 2014 Three Palms Vineyard Napa Valley Merlot

So first let’s taste the 2014 Duckhorn Three Palms Vineyard Napa Valley Merlot. I got rhododendron on the nose. Lush layers of flavor on the taste–raspberry fruit and cinnamon stick were the first flavors I noted. The winery tasting notes mention cedar and graphite, and those terms definitely resonate with other elements I was getting. This is a big, bold wine, with firm yet moderate tannins, and lots of complexity.

This Merlot and the lamb itself worked pretty well together, but the sauce made with blackberry jam wound up having a sweet element that distracted a bit for the wine. I also made a side dish of orzo with roasted beets and fennel, and that actually made the whole pairing work better. Beets and fennel are both good veggies with Merlot, especially roasted.

You know what I liked best with this special bottle of Merlot? Sipping the final bit of the wine with some good quality cheddar cheese after dinner! Lesson: as much as I’m about cooking up the perfect recipe to pair with a good bottle of wine, sometimes a great wine can shine best on its own our eating something very simple that keeps the wine front and center.

The Three Palms Vineyard Merlot is comprised of 86% Merlot, 8% Cabernet Sauvignon, 4% Malbec, 2% Petit Verdot; Aging & Oak: 18 months in oak, 100% French Oak, 75% New Oak, 25% Neutral.

This Roasted Lamb Chops with Blackberry Sauce recipe is definitely tasty and easy, but next time I will look for a simple fruit forward wine to work with the sweet element in the sauce. Maybe a rosé or sparkling wine? Let me know your ideas in the comments!

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More Open That Bottle Night Pairings

Be sure to check out all the special wine and food that was paired with it by checking out these Wine Pairing Weekend #OTBN blog posts!

Martin from ENOFYLZ Wine Blog will post “A Journey To Iberia And Beyond for Open That Bottle Night #WinePW”

Lori from Dracaena Wines shares “Emotion, Not Money or Age for this #OTBN #WinePW“

Wendy at A Day in the Life on the Farm  posted “Instant Pot Irish Stew with a White Cheddar Crust #EattheWorld #winePW #OTBN”

Jane from Always Ravenous served “Chicken Breasts in a Tart Cherry Pinot Noir Sauce #winePW #OTBN“

Camilla at Culinary Adventures with Camilla paired “Brisket over Butter-Braised Leeks + Hundred Suns’ Ciel du Cheval 2015“

Nicole from Somm’s Table will share “The Big 10, Champagne, Burgundy, and #OTBN.”

Gwendolyn at Wine Predator will blog about “OTBN: Ranchita Canyon Vertical Paired with Lasagna for #WinePW“

Here on Cooking Chat I will post “Roasted Lamb Chops with Blackberry Sauce for #OTBN #winePW“

Don’t have a blog post about #OTBN to share? No problem! Join the conversation about #OTBN and special wine and food pairings by joining our live Twitter chat. Tune into the #winePW hashtag on Saturday, March 10, 11 am ET / 8 am PT to join the conversation.

You can also check out past and future #winePW topics on the Wine Pairing Weekend page. Get ready for the April #winePW which will be on “Exploring the Wines of Navarra Spain“, hosted by Gwendolyn at Wine Predator.

For background on #OTBN, visit our Open That Bottle Night Invite post.